Aden (Yemen): Six people, including four
policemen, were killed in overnight clashes in Yemen`s tense
south, where a separate Qaeda-style ambush killed a tribal
chief and his two bodyguards, local and tribal officials .
Four policemen and two militants were killed as
fighting between Yemen`s security forces and separatists
intensified late yesterday in Habilayn in the southern
province of Lahij, medics and local officials said to a news agency.
In an earlier Saturday tally, several officials said to a news agency that two policemen and a militant were killed in the
clashes.
Violent fighting broke out yesterday at dawn after
security forces put up a checkpoint outside Habilayn, pitting
Yemen`s army against militants from the Southern Movement, a
local official had said.
"The situation is tense in Habilayn and government
forces had to withdraw the reinforcements dispatched to the
area," said residents contacted by a news agency.
Separately, a chief from the Al-Fadl tribe, Sheikh
Hussein Saleh Mashdal, was killed in an overnight ambush with
his two bodyguards in Abyan, another southern province, a
security official said.
The official, who refused to be named, blamed the
attack on al Qaeda.
Mashdal was "leading the mediation between the
authorities and alleged Qaeda militants" in the city of Loder,
one of his relatives said to a news agency.
Deadly clashes in Loder between suspected al Qaeda
militants and the army last month left at least 33 people,
including 19 militants, 11 soldiers, and three civilians dead,
according to a news agency tally based on official and medical
sources.
South Yemen, where many residents complain of
discrimination by the Sanaa government in the allocation of
resources, was independent from 1967 until 1990 when it united
with the north. It launched an abortive secession bid in 1994.
The Southern Movement is a mix of secessionists and
those who seek greater autonomy for the region.
Yemen, the Arab world`s poorest country and the
ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, is struggling to combat
an al Qaeda resurgence.
PTI
